Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie

Awarded the Booker Prize in 1981, Midnight’s Children is Salman Rushdie’s most highly regarded work of fiction. Rushdie was born on June 19, 1947, and his birth occurred simultaneously with a particularly meaningful moment in Indian history. After almost one hundred years of colonial rule, the British occupation of India was coming to an end. Almost exactly three months after Rushdie’s birth, India gained its long-awaited independence at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947. Just as Rushdie was born during a revolutionary time period in Indian history, Saleem Sinai, the narrator and protagonist of the novel, is born at midnight, August 15, 1947, at the exact moment India achieved its independence from British rule. Now nearing his thirty-first birthday, Saleem believes that his body is beginning to crack and fall apart. Fearing his impending death, he grows anxious to tell his life story. Throughout the novel, Saleem, in the process of his search for self-definition, attempts to solve the puzzles of his own identity. From the moment that he is born, his life is inextricably linked to the progress of Indian as a nation, and Rushdie explores the dichotomy between the single and the many in order to define the identity of his characters. Furthermore, the physical and emotional fragmentation that Saleem experiences hinders his ability to determine his true identity. Saleem’s continuous efforts to make meaning of his life illustrate the imperfections that make him human, a characteristic that Rushdie highlights throughout the novel. Rushdie’s work, which is considered postmodern Indian literature, is inspired by both ancient and contemporary Indian culture; however, his writing style, character development, tone, and themes differ vastly from those of ancient Indian literary works such as The Recognition of Shakuntala.

From a very young age, Saleem yearns to understand the relationship between personal life and the political, national, and religious events of the time. “Saleem Sinai, yoked by his birth to India’s fate, becomes the living embodiment of his nation, and finally its voice. His identity embodies the identity of his collective group and of his nation” (Karamcheti 81). Born at the dawn of Indian independence, Saleem manages to represent the entirety of India within his individual self. He is, he says, “mysteriously handcuffed to history, [his] destinies indissolubly chained to those of [his] country” (Rushdie 3). The idea that a single person could represent a diverse nation like India highlights one of the novel’s fundamental themes: the relationship between the single and the many. The tension between Saleem’s individual life and the collective life of the nation suggests that public and private will always influence one another; however, it remains unclear whether they can be fully associated with each other. Throughout the novel, Saleem struggles to contain all of India within himself – to equate his personal story with events of his country. Saleem firmly believes that he “shall eventually crumble into (approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious dust” (Rushdie 36). At the time of the novel’s publication, India’s population was about 630 million. By claiming that he will crumble into 630 million pieces, Saleem suggests that when his body falls apart, he will release all of India and its people. With the notion that, in his individual body, Saleem contains a physical representation of every single “anonymous” Indian citizen, Rushdie symbolically uses Saleem to embody modern India. His bodily disintegration facilitates the formation of his identity in his mind as he conceives of himself as a physical embodiment of India’s history.

Throughout the novel, the private life of Saleem Sinai coincides with the public life of India. India’s defeat in the war metaphorically drains the country of its confidence and optimism, just as...

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...Midnight’sChildrenSalmanRushdie
Multicultural and transcultural issues
SalmanRushdie was born on June 19, 1947, to an affluent family in Bombay, India. Rushdie’s birth coincided with a particularly important moment in Indian history: after nearly one hundred years of colonial rule, the British occupation of the South Asian subcontinent was coming to an end. Almost exactly three months after Rushdie’s birth, Pakistan and India achieved their long-awaited independence when, at the stroke of midnight on August 14 and 15, respectively, power was transferred from Great Britain to the sovereign governments of each country. The period that immediately followed independence proved tumultuous. Political and social tensions between Hindus and Muslims caused not only the division of India into two separate countries—a calamitous event referred to as Partition—but also wide-scale riots that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The violence that accompanied independence was a prelude to the multiple wars, coups, and governmental abuses that plagued the area in the years that followed.
The political upheaval and constant threat of violence that marked the first three decades of independence forms the backdrop forMidnight’s Children, Rushdie’s most celebrated novel. Like Rushdie himself, Saleem, the narrator...

...Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight'sChildren employs strategies which engage in an exploration of History, Nationalism and Hybridity. This essay will examine three passages from the novel which demonstrate these issues. Furthermore, it will explore why each passage is a good demonstration of these issues, how these issues apply to India in the novel, and how the novel critiques these concepts.
The passage from pages 37-38 effectively demonstrates the concept of history, as it foregrounds elements important to this issue. Rushdie, challenges the conventional modes of history through his self reflective narrative structure. The passage is a good demonstration of its topic as it illustrates the problems of re-writing history. His mode of writing attempts to encourage the reader to reconsider the valid interpretation of his history. Saleem writes "please believe that I am falling apart" ,as he begins "to crack like an old jug", illustrating a sense of fragmentation of his story. This parallels the narrative structure of the novel as being circular, discontinuous and digressive. This fragmentation appropriates the concept of history, which was developed by colonisers. History works for a particular class of ideology, and therefore it will be contaminated, oblique and subjective.
The fictionality' of history is grounded in the simple assumption that life is shaped like a story. For Saleem, who is "buffeted by too...

...
Rushdie uses many techniques in “Midnight’sChildren” which involves magical reality, history and political issues. The oral narrative used by Saleem Sinai is the advanced technique, where he narrates his story of life to his beloved, called Padma. It is a story of two nations. Midnight’sChildren is described as a national allegory. Neil ten Kortenaar argues that Saleem’s narrative is a narrative of India’s national Independence and it is for this reason that the story of Saleem Sinai in Midnight’sChildren has been described as a national Allegory. Personal history of the characters intersects with political history.
Saleem Sinai represents historical facts as a narrative in Midnights children. Historical narration give birth too many consequences, which forms violence. History is remembered by legends as saleem narrates, “sometimes legends make reality, and becomes more useful than the facts (57).”The legends like Brahma and Shiva give realism to Hindus. In the history of Hinduism Brahma is the God of creation and Shiva is the embodiment of destruction, though together with Vishnu create the holy trinity. The destruction of Shiva also reflects Mian Abdullah, who is a dedicated participant to resist the partition of India along religious lines. He is also known as hummingbird, considered to be symbols of peace, love and happiness. He is sacred for his...

...Plot Overview
Saleem Sinai, the narrator of Midnight’sChildren, opens the novel by explaining that he was born on midnight, August 15, 1947, at the exact moment India gained its independence from British rule. Now nearing his thirty-first birthday, Saleem believes that his body is beginning to crack and fall apart. Fearing that his death is imminent, he grows anxious to tell his life story. Padma, his loyal and loving companion, serves as his patient, often skeptical audience.
Saleem’s story begins in Kashmir, thirty-two years before his birth, in 1915. There, Saleem’s grandfather, a doctor named Aadam Aziz, begins treating Naseem, the woman who becomes Saleem’s grandmother. For the first three years Aadam Aziz treats her, Naseem is always covered by a sheet with a small hole in it that is moved to expose the part of her that is sick. Aadam Azis sees his future wife’s face for the first time on the same day World War I ends, in 1918. Aadam Aziz and Naseem marry, and the couple moves to Agra, where Aadam—a doctor whose loss of religious faith has affected him deeply—sees how protests in the name of independence get violently suppressed. Aadam and Naseem have three daughters, Alia, Mumtaz, and Emerald, and two sons, Mustapha and Hanif. Aadam becomes a follower of the optimistic activist Mian Abdullah, whose anti-Partition stance eventually leads to his assassination. Following Abdullah’s death, Aadam hides Abdullah’s frightened assistant,...

...been persecuted in less enlightened times such as Mark Twain, and some have been ridiculed by the press like Edgar Allan Poe. Yet, SalmanRushdie was the first author in the free world to have been pursued from across continents and forced into hiding because of a death sentence by a foreign government. To say SalmanRushdie is a very controversial writer in today's society would be a gross understatement. Rushdie in fact could be considered the ideal poster boy for absolute freedom of the press. <br><br>It is not that Rushdie prides himself on being rebellious, he simply presents his ideas bluntly and it just so happens that his ideas address extremely volatile topics such as the Islam religion. Rushdie's philosophy was eloquently put when he wrote, "What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."<br><br>Contrary to many great authors, Rushdie did not endure a traumatic childhood, suffer from alcohol addiction, or live with chronic depression. Instead, Rushdie actually had what many would view as a close to perfect upbringing. Rushdie was born in 1947 to a middle-class Moslem family in the great city of Bombay, India. His paternal grandfather was an Urdu poet, and his father a Cambridge educated businessman. At the age of fourteen, Rushdie was sent to Rugby School in England where he excelled in his...

...Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’sChildren as a Permanent Plight of an Individual Identity
In SalmanRushdie, India has produced a glittering novelist-one with starting imaginative and intellectual resources, a master of perpetual storytelling.
-The New Yorker
Sir Ahmed SalmanRushdie is a British Indian Novelist and Essayist. He first achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight’sChildren (1981), which won the Booker Prize. Much of his early fiction is set at least partly on the Indian Subcontinent. His style is often classified as magical realism, while a dominant theme of his work is the long, rich and often fraught story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the East and the West. His other novels are Grimus (1975), Shame (1982), The Satanic Verses (1988), Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990), The Moor’s last Sight (1995), The Ground beneath Her Feet (1999), Step across This Line (2003), Shalimar the clown (2005) and Luca and the Fire of Life (2010).
A Marvelous epic. Rushdie’s prose snaps into playback and flash- forward…..stopping on images, vistas, and characters of unforgettable presence. Their range is rich as India herself.
-Newsweek
Midnight's...

...Midnight’sChildren by SalmanRushdie
(A Study On Postcolonial Innovations)
A Thesis Presented to the Department of Literature
College of Nursing
In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirement in
Literature 101
World Literatures
Tan, John Ryan N.
March 2012
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication………………………………………………………………………………………..2
Acknowledgement………………………………………………………………………………3
CHAPTER
1 The Problem and its background
A: Introduction……………………………………………………………………….4
B: Statement of the Problem……………………………………………………...10
C: Objective of the Study………………………………………………………….10
D: Significance of the Study………………………………………………………11
E: Scope and Limitations………………………………………………………….13
2 Review of Related Literature and Studies………………………………………14
3 Summary…………………………………………………………………………. 18
4 Discussion and Analysis…………………………………………………………..28
5 Summary, Findings, Conclusion and Recommendations
A: Summary of the Study………………………………………………………….83
B: Findings……………………………………………………………………….....83
C: Conclusion………………………………………………………………..……..83
D: Recommendations…………………………………………………………..…83
About the Author……………………………………………………………………………….86
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………….96...